I‘ve knocked doors in nearly every election — state, local, and national — since 2016. And though our country may be polarized, I can count the number of truly bad experiences I've had on one hand, and still have at least enough fingers left to succinctly express my opinion of certain public figures.

We all basically want the same things, however we disagree about how to achieve them. And a whole bunch of us across the political spectrum have no idea what the people we vote for have actually done with the power we’ve given them.

As a volunteer researcher for my district’s state legislature candidate, I’d learned how to use Virginia’s byzantine Legislative Information System. Once you learn its ropes, it can tell you a lot about the laws we pass, how they change as they’re negotiated, and how our legislators’ votes change — or don’t — with them.

Ahead of the 2022 Virginia General Assembly session, I wrote and designed this document in about nine days. I made it friendly, nonpartisan, and easy to understand, to ensure that the broadest possible audience could learn from it.

I owe special thanks to Erin Monaghan, formerly of the Virginia House Democrats, for her help fine-tuning some details that even the legislature’s own web site didn’t quite get right. I last updated the guide in 2025 to reflect the LIS’s new look.

Read LIS 101 on Google Drive.